GEC's Layout Progress

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I believe all TV trains and other priority freights like auto parts went over the freight bypass at Harrisburg station. Diesels were exchanged for electrics and vice versa west of the station itself -- and far enough west that, in my memory, eastbound auto parts trains with E44s were moving pretty fast when they reached the station. This exchange was the reason you saw a lot of light electric power crossing the Susquehanna south of the city over the PRR bridge.

Ah, that makes sense. I just thought that the wires ended within site of the station tracks (seemed that way when I was there a few months ago, but we're talking 33 years ago). I suppose they could just wait there if they needed to.

Another train from Potomac Yard was the Tropicana train, which was after my time for the NEC, but the Wikipedia entry says it ran twice a week northbound by about 1975. We're starting to get into the reasons the NEC always struck me as a tantalizing prototype, but modeling actual operations is extremely involved.

You know, I totally forgot about that train, yet I don't think I see it in the schedule. I wonder what the train symbol for that one is? I do have a video of that train on the Penn Central behind a pair of E44s. that DEFINITELY would be a train to model, with all its fancy orange reefers.

As far as involved operations go, thats why I actually went through all the effort to map out the schedules. There are so many trains so frequently on the corridor that It becomes practical to model a small chunk of it. I can pick any one or two conrail freights, and there will probably be at least one Amtrak train, and several commuter trains "around" it on the schedule. This means that in one "real life" hour, you can reasonably model operations, and afford the proper models to represent those operations. It beats buying a huge fleets of equipment so that you can run every train for a long period, which is impractical.

The next step will be "graphing" the trains based on time and location, so I can determine which trains will meet at what time in which direction. This could help me determine a specific "place" on the corridor to model, which might mean some generic, "boring" part of the corridor, which is in my mind, perfect, since the less "distinct" details, the easier it is to model.

Another New Jersey issue is the Amboy Secondary, which certainly in PC days was a route for coal to South Amboy. The trains left and entered the main at Monmouth. How much of that was still active by the late 70s I don't know, but it's a reminder that whatever you do, you would need to be working in a lot of coal extras, going either to South Amboy or Greenville.

The Amboy Secondary was still active, and in fact, it was used as a "bypass" to New York Penn station more than once by Amtrak when there were issues with the Corridor between Monmouth Junction and Union Interlocking. I've got photos of GG1s and I think even a Metroliner MU set picking its way through Jamesburg and Helmetta. They would connect with the NY&LB, then travel north to rejoin the Corridor at Rahway.

There were a few freights that went that way on the schedules I looked at, but nothing to exciting. I didn't notice the coal runs, but I didn't look either.

That said, I don't plan to model that far south. Its probably far more practical to model Princeton Junction, and maybe a piece of Monmouth Junction, but those locations are also in relatively "boring" areas, with just straight track for miles, and trees, and houses. As one approaches New Brunswick, there is a long industrial track running parallel on the left hand side traveling north, but it was never really a heavily used industrial track either.

Areas north of Rahway feature a greater variety of trains, and there are more interesting industrial locations there. True, this also means modeling more trains, but I don't plan to model any large number of trains, just a few specific ones very well.